Reading for the Logic Stage

Full-year course. Reading for the Logic Stage is designed to engage middle grade students in reading and literary discussion. Students will come together with their instructor once a week to talk about that week’s reading. The instructor will provide prompts for class discussion; these questions will guide that week’s discussion. Students will also be given the opportunity to serve as discussion facilitators throughout the semester.

Example Syllabus (Download the PDF)

Course texts:  

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• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
• Amos Fortune, Free Man, Elizabeth Yates
• The Birchbark House, Louise Erdrich
• The Complete Folk & Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm and Jacob Grimm
• The Crucible, Arthur Miller
• El Deafo, Cece Bell
• The Great Fire, Jim Murphy
• The Hobbit: Illustrated Edition, J.R.R. Tolkien
• I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, Malala Yousafzai
• Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
• Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery, Agatha Christie
• Navigating Early, Clare Vanderpool
• Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw
• The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
• The Winter Room, Gary Paulsen
• Selected Poems by Christina Rossetti, Edgar Allan Poe, Langston Hughes, Margarita Engle, Robert Frost, William Wordsworth, Wisława Szymborska, and Yusef Komunyakaa (will be provided by the instructor)

Class meets once per week for 50-55 minutes.

Class cap: 20 students.

Designed for grades 6-8.